u/altunaandy

“RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Duke University Health System is requesting approval from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to help finance a new hospital and a new emergency department in Wake County, state officials said Thursday.
According to state officials, Duke Health filed two certificates of need with the NCDHHS.
In one certificate, according to the NCDHSS, Duke Health is seeking approval for a $619.2 million cost overrun to develop of Duke Cary Hospital, an upcoming 40-bed facility in Cary scheduled to be completed in July 2029.”

“Another certificate seeks approval for the development of Duke Garner Emergency Department, a freestanding emergency department in Garner expected to cost $32.3 million and be completed in December 2027, according to the NCDHHS.
State officials said a public hearing on the request to develop the Garner emergency department is scheduled for Aug. 17 at 10:30 a.m. in conference room L1-01210 at the NCDHHS Headquarters, 1915 Health Services Way in Raleigh.
For more information about the Garner emergency department project, contact project analyst Chalice L. Moore by calling 919-855-4630 or emailing chalice.moore@dhhs.nc.gov
A public hearing on the request for the cost overrun to develop the Cary hospital is scheduled for Aug. 18 at 10:30 a.m. in conference room L1-01215 at the NCDHHS Headquarters, according to state officials”

. “Contact project analyst Yolanda Jackson for more information about the Cary hospital project by calling 919-855-4630 or emailing yolanda.jackson@dhhs.nc.gov
Comments about either project may be emailed to dhsr.con.Comments@dhhs.nc.gov or physically mailed to Healthcare Planning and Certificate of Need Section Division of Health Service Regulation at 2704 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-2704.”

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https://apple.news/A06sD\_rfPSHuY63X4WMJblQ

“LIVE OAK >> Dominican Hospital nurses rallied in front of the medical center on Tuesday, one month after layoff notices were sent to about 20 nurses and staff. Drivers honked their horns in support as they passed dozens of nurses and their supporters chanting, waving signs and blowing whistles.
Hospital workers say the proposed cuts would jeopardize patient safety by stretching the staff thin and taking time away from patient care. CommonSpirit Health, which owns the hospital and more than 2,000 other health care centers in the U.S., did not say why the cuts were proposed.
CommonSpirit did not make anyone available for an interview with Santa Cruz Local. In an emailed statement, spokesperson Christina Zicklin wrote that “the safety of our caregivers and patients is our highest priority,” and said hospital operations were not affected by the rally.
Born and raised in Santa Cruz, Carly Chavez-Ellis has worked as a nurse at Dominican for three years. She said the cuts would slash “critical” staff positions. In the cardiac unit where she works, they are set to lose the person responsible for coordinating patient transportation and fielding phone calls from family members, other hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, patients who were discharged, and more.

““It’s scary, because all the nurses are wondering who’s going to take that role,” she said from the picket line. “I fear that nurses will be expected to step up and do those things, and that’s going to take nurses away from the bedside with direct patient care.”
Chavez-Ellis said the cardiac unit lost a staffer a couple years ago when CommonSpirit reduced the number of aides to three from four.
“Safe staffing saves lives,” she said, adding that the cuts are “under the guise of saving money, but their CEO made $14 million in 2025.””

“Tax returns from the nonprofit show that the 30 top-paid employees each made more than $1 million in the fiscal year ended June 2025, and brought in more than $128 million collectively. CommonSpirit reported a total of $822 million spent on salaries for its roughly 160,000 employees. Top-heavy executive compensation is not unusual for large hospital systems.
Rory O’Moore, who’s worked in health care for nine years and has been at Dominican for two, said the decisions are being made by executives who don’t necessarily understand the direct effects cuts have on patients.
“This is people’s lives that they’re playing around with, and they just want to save a couple dollars,” O’Moore said. “We’re going to keep escalating until we have something.”
O’Moore said that ostensibly the reason for the cuts is the effect of the Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that decimated funding for Medicaid, but that the effects of that bill also mean fuller emergency rooms and the need for staff has only increased.
“It’s very short-sighted,” O’Moore said of the proposed cuts.”

“Lauren Bailey works in the ER at Dominican and said she is also concerned about the effects on patient outcomes if the cuts go through.
“If these ancillary services get cut, then more is going to be on the plate of the nurses, which means less time with patients, less time being able to review charts, to get reports from the ER nurses trying to get patients upstairs,” she said. Fewer staff would slow the process of moving patients from the ER to other units, she said, which also means fewer available ER beds.
Proposed cuts include the staff responsible for answering call lights from patients, she said, which come from “patients who are asking for emergent things. ‘I have to go to the bathroom. I need pain medicine.’ Basic human needs. And again, that’s going to fall on the plate of the nurses.”
She added, “when you’re in a scenario where you feel like you’re stretched too thin, things get missed.””

https://apple.news/AlI7Jv9z2T8GUdmNrXNvDyg

He rose in the field of medicine to became a renowned plastic surgeon and pharmacist and lectured around the country on the business side of health care.
Now he is a murder suspect.

“Douglas "Kirk" Rawl was arrested July 1 after the death of his wife Allison "Che' Che'" Rawl. The couple, whose Facebook profile says they were married in 2021, lived in College Grove, an unincorporated, rural area about 40 minutes from Nashville in Williamson County.
Allison Rawl's LinkedIn profile says she was a physical therapist at the Southern Joint Replacement Institute.
Her husband is being held on a $2.5 million bond. Paperwork on his arrest is not expected to be delivered to the Williamson County Courthouse until July 6.
The Williamson County Sheriff's Office asked for the couple's neighbors on Wellsford Lane to review security camera images from midnight to 3 a.m. on July 1 to assist in the investigation.
A news released said, "Anyone who saw or heard anything unusual, noticed suspicious activity, or has video footage that may assist investigators is asked to contact Detective Raechel Haber at 615-790-5550."”

“Kirk Rawl was raised on a family farm in South Carolina. His professional biography says he earned a Bachelor of Science in pharmacy and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of South Carolina. 
Part of the bio reads, "Kirk has over 30 years of experience as a medical professional. His diverse background in both medicine and pharmacy has fostered a broad understanding of the clinical, regulatory and business aspects of health care. He has practiced in large regional medical centers and small rural hospitals. He has also practiced community pharmacy in large traditional chains and independent specialty settings."
He is listed as the chief strategy officer for Entrustment Health. Rawl "coordinates the implementation of new programs and facilitates the management of Entrustment’s subsidiaries," his bio says.
Allison Rawl worked as a physical therapist for 24 years.
Homicides are rare in Williamson County.
The July 1 crime is the third homicide since 2022, according to Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime statistics.
The Tennessean will provide more details as soon as they become available on this breaking”

https://apple.news/AVaXSZa\_BTg-sdhacPMLleg

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is proposing a new rule on Thursday to keep hospitals from charging markups on discounted drugs for Medicare patients and says that could save consumers $1.1 billion next year, according to estimates obtained by The Associated Press.
The rule would apply to hospitals that serve low-income patients under what is known as the 340B program, which lets hospitals buy outpatient prescription drugs at discounted prices. But in many cases, hospitals can bill insurers at rates that exceed those costs, allowing hospitals to keep the difference and resulting in higher costs to patients.”

. “Under the proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would change the formula for what hospitals participating in the program can get reimbursed, in an effort to cut costs for patients.
The Republican administration has sought to show during an election year that it is tackling the challenges of affordability for U.S. families at a time when rising healthcare costs are driving financial strains for households and the government alike. While the administration has taken several steps it says will save money on medical treatment, it is unclear how much savings might ultimately materialize based on the complexity of the country's healthcare system.
There is the risk that hospital systems could see their revenues decrease, which could have consequences in the communities they serve in terms of the services they offer and jobs they provide. The 340B program was initially designed as a way for healthcare providers to stretch scarce federal resources to better serve more patients. But it has long been at the center of a lobbying battle between hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, with each side attempting to enlist lawmakers in maintaining or changing the benefit.”

“The agency estimates that the average older adult with Medicare Part B coverage who is administered one of these drugs would save $800 a year in co-payments. That would work out to a total savings of $1.1 billion for everyone with that coverage.
The savings over 10 years could total about $20 billion, according to a White House official who requested anonymity to discuss the rule before the official announcement. The official said the proposed rule was not previewed for hospital groups before the release.
In a policy draft of the rule, the administration gave a specific example of how the current system works for the prostate cancer drug Lupron Depot. Hospitals under the 340B program can acquire a dose for roughly $700, but they can receive about $4,000 in Medicare reimbursement for administering it and an additional $1,000 from the patient co-payment.
The proposed rule would cut by roughly 40% that amount that hospitals in the discounted drug program could be paid through Medicare programs. If approved, the rule would go into effect at the start of next year.
In 2018 during President Donald Trump's first term, his administration tried to enact this same type of rule reduce Medicare payments to hospitals. But the Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the government could not provide a separate reimbursement plan for 340B hospitals.

“The president signed an executive order in April 2025 to survey how much hospitals spend to buy drugs. The result of that survey led to the proposed rule, which would cap Medicare reimbursement for participating hospitals at the average sales prices, minus 33.4%. The reason why the average reimbursement rate would be cut is because the hospitals acquired the drugs at discounted prices.”

https://apple.news/AAINL3tWRQ\_2hijrtYqXbpA

Mass deportations would be felt across hospitals and emergency rooms, which already face persistent staffing shortfalls. The long-term healthcare sector will suffer the greatest disruptions, experts say.

Amid the flurry of consequential Supreme Court decisions that have come down recently, it's the one about temporary protected status that has America's healthcare sector the most worried.

“The pain will be felt across hospitals and emergency rooms, which already operate under persistent staffing shortfalls, but it’s the long-term care sector, including senior care facilities and home care, that will suffer the greatest disruptions, said Steffie Woolhandler, a distinguished professor of health policy at City University of New York at Hunter College and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.
“It’s going to be a disaster in the Boston area, where a lot of our nursing home and home care aides are Haitian,” Woolhandler told NPR. But beyond that, she added, “If the United States becomes inhospitable to noncitizens, which I think Trump is doing, we're going to have a lot of problems staffing our entire healthcare system.”
Massachusetts has the third largest population of Haitians with TPS (19,000), behind Florida (158,000) and New York (40,000), respectively.
Woolhandler is one of three authors of a 2025 report analyzing the impact of Trump’s mass deportation plans, including the potential effects of stripping TPS protections from people from the 17 countries that the federal government deemed eligible. The status is meant to protect individuals from those countries who are living in the U.S. from having to return to places ”

“FWD.us breaks down the numbers even further, estimating that 21,000 Haitian TPS holders are in hard-to-fill jobs as nursing assistants and caregivers.
The dearth of qualified healthcare workers is already putting existing institutions under tremendous strain. Woolhandler said two-thirds of hospitals report they’ve had to close beds because they don't have enough staff, and about half of nursing homes similarly say that they can't take new admissions because they don't have enough personnel.
“The thing that has to be said is that the healthcare of everybody is going to be compromised by this. If you start throwing out workers that play a key role in the whole continuum of care … it tends to create a bottleneck or a backup,” she said.
If a family can’t find a bed in a nursing home or home aid caregiver, then those people may end up stuck in a hospital or in emergency rooms, Woolhandler said.
Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, which represents more than 5,300 aging service providers nationwide, called the ruling a direct threat to the delivery of much-needed care and services.”

“The legal limbo has communities wracked with worry, particularly in Springfield, Ohio, where 1 in 4 residents is of Haitian descent. Hours after the ruling, dozens of panicked TPS holders were calling Viles Dorsainvil asking for advice. The 40-year-old is the co-founder and executive director of Haitian Support Center, a nonprofit that provides a range of services to Haitian nationals and refugees, including legal assistance.
“They’re wondering if they can still keep their assets or money at the bank, if they can still go to work because TPS came with the work permit, and with the driver's license privilege,” Dorsainvil told NPR. “The community is devastated.”
The Trump administration has released little information about how it will withdraw protections under the program for more than 330,000 Haitian and 4,000 Syrian TPS holders affected by the high court’s ruling last week. On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that existing Employment Authorization Documents, which permit TPS recipients to legally work in the country, will expire on July 10.”

“Dorsainvil said he’s advising people that the most important step they can take is to sign a power of attorney to someone they trust. Parents with American-born children should also plan to sign over guardianship of their kids, in case DHS pursues family separations, he said.
For now, he said, he’s got little else to share with the people calling, but he shares their anxiety.
Dorsainvil is also a TPS recipient, but unlike those who fled the destruction of the 2010 earthquake, he came to the U.S. in 2020 on a visitor visa. At the time, he did not intend to stay more than six months. But during his stay, Haiti’s already fragile political system devolved into unrest and violence that led to the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and continues to today.
“There was no way I could go home,” Dorsainvil said, adding that it was the Biden administration’s extension of the TPS program for Haitians that allowed him and his brother to stay in the country. It wasn’t until 2024, when Trump first set his eyes on ending the TPS program for Haitians, that Dorsainvil and his sibling, a former doctor in Haiti who now works as as a nurse in Chicago, both applied for asylum. Those applications have still not been resolved.
”

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https://apple.news/AmLDbuS\_-SU6ZIXtaaybluw

Hospitals would no longer be able to collect bigger Medicare payments than doctors do for routine scans like ultrasounds and MRIs.

Seniors could pay less starting in January for X-rays, ultrasounds, MRIs or other scans administered in a hospital under a proposal released Thursday by the Trump administration.

“Medicare intends to reduce payments to hospitals for routine imaging services, putting them on par with what it pays doctor’s offices for the same services, according to two White House officials who detailed the proposed rule for NOTUS.
It’s the Trump administration’s most aggressive move yet to curb Medicare payments to hospitals, which receive two to four times more on average than doctor’s offices for identical outpatient procedures and who have played an outsized role in driving up health-care spending in the United States.
Past administrations and Congress have taken incremental steps to equalize hospital and doctor’s office payments, something called “site-neutral” payments. These efforts have engendered sharp opposition by hospitals, which argue they serve sicker, more complex patients and are subject to larger overhead and licensing costs than independent physician’s offices.
The administration “is very interested in pushing the envelope on how far we can get on site-neutral because we think it is very good policy,” a White House official said.”

https://apple.news/AQ1DIhJCyRo2NQXMzJWa-1g

“CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A week after Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes , doctors on Wednesday said the biggest dangers now facing survivors are untreated injuries and infectious diseases.
Thousands of displaced Venezuelans are sleeping in crowded shelters or outside without access to clean water amid dismal sanitary conditions following the June 24 earthquakes which officials say killed at least 2,295 and left more than 11,000 injured.
Aid workers said the aftermath of the quakes has become a major medical crisis that, unless quickly controlled, would take more lives in the days and weeks ahead. The emergency has laid bare Venezuela's chronic shortage of doctors, the result of years of economic crisis, underfunding and emigration .
“The issue we foresee just around the corner is the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring,” said Eugenio Cova, the head of the trauma unit at Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in Caracas, the capital. “We’ve already gone through the period of complex trauma — which will continue to occur — but now it’s complicated by infections."”

“Aid workers also warn that the extensive damage to infrastructure is turning hard-hit communities into petri dishes for disease.
“It’s very hot and there’s a lot of concern about potential vector-borne diseases,” said Veronique Durroux, the U.N. humanitarian agency spokesperson for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Waste management is an issue. Debris management, when you see the scale of devastation, it’s very concerning.”
US military deploys 900 personnel to aid Venezuela
The United States had 900 military personnel currently on the ground to support relief and rescue operations as of Wednesday, Steven McLoud, a U.S. Southern Command spokesperson, told The Associated Press. ”

“The military has repaired an earthquake-damaged runway at the main international airport that serves Caracas to allow for the arrival of humanitarian assistance and stationed naval assets off the coast to receive airlifted survivors. An additional 100 people from the U.S. State Department have been sent to aid those efforts, McLoud said.”

“So far, the Trump administration has offered Venezuela $300 million in assistance channeled through aid groups and the United Nations. But that remains just a fraction of the post-earthquake aid the country needs: Material damage from the quakes is estimated at over $6.7 billion, according to satellite analysis by the U.N. Development Program.
Fifty other international teams have arrived in recent days to help with search-and-rescue operations, including from countries like Ecuador and Israel that don't have diplomatic relations with Venezuela. Against the odds — the time period for survival when trapped under rubble is typically 48 to 72 hours — rescuers are continuing to find a small number of survivors, including on Tuesday, a toddler who had been trapped for six days.
Underequipped hospitals face a surge
Long before the earthquakes, Venezuela's public hospitals were strained by shortages of water, energy, critical medical equipment and highly trained staff.
Among the 8 million people who fled the country's economic crisis in recent years are many specialized doctors and nurses.
“Doctors between the ages of 35 and 55 have left and taken with them a ton of experience,” said Jaime Lorenzo, director of United Doctors of Venezuela, a nonprofit network ”

“Those who remain now confront the overwhelming prospect of treating thousands of grievous injuries from crushed and caved-in concrete structures. The government on Wednesday raised the number of people injured in the quakes to 11,267.
Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in Caracas lacks screws and plates needed for orthopedic surgery and medicated gauze to prevent infections, said Cova, who conducts surgery on crushed limbs in makeshift operating rooms because possible earthquake damage has made parts of the building inaccessible. According to the government, the earthquakes damaged or otherwise compromised 38 hospitals nationwide.
There's also a nationwide shortage of ambulances that forces most injured Venezuelans to arrive to hospitals in the backs of pickup trucks, said Lorenzo. That's just one of the ways that ordinary citizens, feeling abandoned by the government , say they've been forced to shoulder much of the rescue effort.
When the chaos and trauma of this first week after the quake starts to subside, Lorenzo said he fears a new wave of patients will hit hospitals: Venezuelans, who, rendered suddenly homeless after the earthquakes, have gone all week without medication for chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure.”

“The government of acting President Delcy Rodriguez — who served as deputy to President Nicolás Maduro until he was ousted by the United States in January and who became interim leader with the backing of the Trump administration — has faced growing criticism over its handling of the disaster.
Videos circulating on social media in recent days appear to show security officers picking through the rubble of fallen buildings and making off with U.S. dollars, appliances and other personal belongings and sparking widespread anger among Venezuelans. The videos could not be verified by the AP.
In response to the videos, the the Interior Ministry on Wednesday said it dismissed and detained four police officials for “deviating from their duties and taking advantage of the rescue and humanitarian aid efforts."
Rodríguez announced seven days of national mourning on Wednesday to honor victims.
Many thousands remain missing, adding ambiguity to the temblors' complete toll and leaving families in an agonizing limbo as they wait days by collapsed buildings, hoping for the bodies of their loved ones to surface.
One non-governmental digital database where families can register missing loved ones showed over 40,600 people still unaccounted for as of Wednesday.”

https://apple.news/A7Kg7JFxBS3KMGIu6lUsAcg

“Rural America has a healthcare crisis hiding in plain sight. Hospitals are closing. Nurses are retiring faster than they can be replaced. And the students most likely to stay and serve their communities — kids growing up in small towns across Indiana, Texas, Delaware and dozens of states in between — often graduate high school with no clear path into the healthcare careers that desperately need them.
Now there’s a once-in-a-generation federal investment designed to change that. But most educators, workforce leaders and even some state policymakers haven’t heard of it yet.
The Rural Health Transformation Program represents a $50 billion federal commitment between 2026 and 2030, administered through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and flowing to states based on rural population and approved transformation plans. Every participating state will receive roughly $1 billion or more to redesign rural healthcare delivery, stabilize rural hospitals and build sustainable health systems. Education and workforce development are explicitly named as core investment priorities.”

“The question isn’t whether this money will be spent. It’s whether states will spend it wisely enough to actually build the talent pipelines rural communities need — or whether it will flow almost entirely to system stabilization, leaving the workforce crisis unaddressed at its root.
We think states should dedicate a meaningful share of this funding to catalyze cross-sector partnerships that build the healthcare workforce starting in high school. Here’s why.
Nursing is one of the most powerful engines of economic mobility in America.
The Wall Street Journal has reported on nursing’s standing as an exceptional pathway — accessible without elite credentials, leading to stable middle-class wages and open to students from all backgrounds. Burning Glass research confirms the nursing degree is among the least likely to be underemployed of any college degree program. For rural students — who are disproportionately low-income, first-generation and from communities of color — a clear, supported pathway into nursing isn’t just career preparation. It’s economic transformation and community revitalization.”

“But pathways don’t build themselves. They require high schools, community colleges and universities, and hospitals to do something most of them have never done together: align curriculum, clinical placements, financial aid and hiring pipelines into a coherent system.
Models like RAZ-32 in Indiana show this is possible. There, high schools, colleges and regional health systems have built integrated pathways that braid together K-12 funding, registered apprenticeship dollars, Pell grants and direct employer investment to move students from healthcare CTE coursework into Licensed Practical Nurse credentials — and ultimately toward RN roles.
Students earn credentials, communities get nurses, and hospitals get a workforce they helped train. Similarly, the Rodel Foundation in Delaware just released a new report confirming that these approaches work. The study finds that 81% of high school graduates from healthcare pathways are either enrolled in postsecondary education or employed in healthcare within 18 months of graduation, demonstrating a clear connection between high school pathways and in-demand careers. That’s what a system designed to work looks like.”

“Bloomberg Philanthropies’ early investments in healthcare-focused high schools have generated important proof points — demonstrating how partnerships between schools and hospitals can be structured, funded and sustained over time. These efforts have shown how to align curriculum with real workforce needs, embed clinical experiences into high school programs and create clear pathways into postsecondary education and healthcare careers. As such, they offer a scalable model for other states and systems. The critical lesson for rural contexts, though, is that place matters. Rural communities can’t typically support a standalone healthcare high school. What they can support — and what this new federal funding should support — are regional pathway models that serve students across multiple school districts, built around a hospital or health system as the anchor employer and clinical training partner.
This is exactly the kind of cross-sector, multi-institution collaboration the new federal program is designed to enable. It explicitly prioritizes regional partnerships across healthcare providers, workforce boards and educational institutions. It allows braiding with federal and state workforce dollars. And states could create a public-private innovation model that attracts philanthropic and employer investment alongside federal resources — multiplying the impact of every federal dollar.”

“The infrastructure for this already exists in many states, with the vast majority prioritizing high-quality career and technical education and supporting statewide college promise programs or workforce-focused scholarships. What’s been missing is a funding mechanism substantial enough to make cross-sector partnership worth the coordination cost — and a policy signal from state leaders that building the healthcare workforce of the future is as important as stabilizing the hospitals of today.
The new federal program creates the opening, but state leaders will determine whether it becomes a short-term stabilization fund or a long-term workforce strategy. States that move quickly to align their education, workforce and health agencies, and invest in regional pathway models that move rural students into nursing and allied health careers, will be better positioned to strengthen both hospitals and communities for years to come.
The $50 billion is already arriving, and states are starting to roll these resources out into communities. The only question is whether it builds something that lasts.”

“We're told Weinstein is "resting and recovering at hospital where he will stay at least for the next few weeks" after his health deteriorated in the past week.
TMZ was first to report the health update, describing it as "heart failure due to pneumonia" while the former film mogul was being held at Rikers Island prison. According to the outlet he is receiving treatment at Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan.
Weinstein is being held at Rikers as he awaits sentencing in September for a 2025 sexual assault conviction. He has had multiple health scares over the past few years.
New York prosecutors recently chose not to pursue a rape charge against the disgraced 74- year-old producer for a fourth time.
The case had already been tried three times, once resulting in an overturned conviction and twice in hung juries. Weinstein's other convictions, including another sexual felony in New York and others in California, still stand.”.

https://apple.news/AEVMOjJxRT7mpTUzAMvGYrA

“A Minnesota teen was hospitalized after a recent family barbecue. 
Stillwater, Minn. teen Noah Walden unknowingly swallowed a metal grill brush bristle that had dislodged into his burger at a Memorial Day barbecue, leading to his hospitalization and emergency surgery after it punctured his intestine, per WCCO.
Walden told the outlet that the barbecue occurred about a week before the pain started. 
“I had two burgers, and my guess is one of them had the grill bristle in [it], and [I] swallowed it,” he told the outlet, adding that he could neither taste nor feel the bristle when he ate it.”

“Got up, couldn't lay back down. It was just so much pain,” he said of the incident.

“He told KSTP his symptoms included “a lot of painful stomach aches.”
KSTP reported that his parents took him to the emergency room in the middle of the night a few days later. 
WCCO said that a CT scan found the bristle lodged in Noah's bowel — it had punctured his intestine. He spent four days in the hospital before surgery became the only option.
His mother, Amie Walden, shared that the hospital had to conduct a 3-inch bowel resection to remove part of his bowel, leaving a 6-inch incision on his abdomen.
“Get rid of your metal grill bristle brushes,” she said of the incident.
Noah told the outlet he is “just kind of glad that, you know, I could get it over with and eventually be done with this ongoing pain.””

https://apple.news/AfDqghw9KSOqb2FviTq1DLA

“ORSAY, France (AP) — Ice. Urgently and in large quantities.
At a Paris-region hospital, emergency medics needed it to plunge patients into cold-water baths to speedily bring down their temperatures so they wouldn't join the growing tally of dead from a record-smashing heat wave . But lacking an ice-making machine, where to get it?
A fast-food restaurant helped out last week, saying the hospital could take its ice. Staff also bought ice from the supermarket. The Paris-Saclay Hospital has now ordered its own ice machine, eagerly awaited in the emergency department for a future attack of sizzling heat.
Whether that hits next week, as France's weather service says it might, or in summer months ahead, medics and hospital administrators are acutely aware that the battle they've just endured will, because of climate change , be followed by others. Just as they brace for the annual flu season, they know that fighting heat waves is becoming their new normal .”

“So as they catch their breath from what the director of the public hospital described as a “horrible" last week, he and his staff are also gearing up for the next round.
“We thought we were ready. We were not actually,” said the director, Cédric Lussiez.
“The hospital was working on a 24-hours-a-day basis because we had to find new solutions in a very short delay,” he said. “We already learned some lessons.””

“Efforts to plug some of the holes exposed by the heat wave that shifted eastward to other parts of Europe after battering France , the United Kingdom and other countries are accelerating on a national level, too.
When France was baking through its hottest days on record last week, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced a 100-million euro ($114-million) spend from this summer on cooling systems for hospitals and other work to keep wards functioning.
And at the latest in a series of heat-wave crisis meetings, he said Monday that the government is buying 30,000 air-conditioning units for health facilities, with the first deliveries expected “at the end of the week, beginning of next week.”
“It's an absolute priority for us that, if the heat wave returns, the hospital situation be a lot less strained," he said.”

““Europe is warming at more than twice the global average. Heat waves are no longer one-off freak events,” it said. “Every summer we fail to prepare for them is a summer we pay for in lives.”
Heart attacks and other heat-exposure emergencies surge
At the Paris-Saclay Hospital, patients suffering from heat exposure started arriving in a surge on June 20, said Dr. Nicolas Gonzales, head of the emergency department.
“It was like a big mountain,” he said. “It was like that for seven days. So it was very intense.”
“In winter, we know we’ll have influenza epidemics and probably COVID as well. And now, in the summer, we’re going to have the climate crisis," he said.
The first patient he treated in this heat wave was an emergency call-out, for a 50-year-old man in a coma at home and with a temperature of about 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). His family said he seemed fine one minute, but was unconscious the next, Gonzales said. He was rushed to the hospital for critical care.
Then came the flood: heart attacks, dehydration, kidney malfunctions and other heat-related problems, impacting all age groups, from children to ”

https://apple.news/AdZxmndPuR8KBnOZDCFf79Q

“Candida auris, a drug-resistant yeast that has spread in American hospitals since it first appeared in the United States in 2016, is still gaining ground. Clinical infections more than doubled in three years, from 2,882 in 2022 to 6,197 in 2024, according to a CDC surveillance report released June 30, 2026. The organism colonizes the skin of hospitalized and long-term-care patients, usually without harm, but in the very sick it can enter the bloodstream, where infections are often fatal. It threatens people whose defenses are already compromised, not the healthy public. It is dangerous because it resists our front-line antifungal drugs.”

“The report counts two kinds of cases. A clinical case is the fungus detected in a patient being worked up for a suspected infection; a screening case is the fungus found by swabbing a patient to check for colonization, the organism living on the skin without causing infection. Because colonization can precede infection, one patient may count as both a screening case and, later, a clinical case, so the two totals overlap and cannot be summed. Both rose steeply between 2022 and 2024.”

“Whether that rise reflects more frequent infections or more looking is hard to settle. Reported cases are a function of effort as much as of biology: hospitals expanded testing and screening, and screening cases became nationally notifiable in 2023, each of which lifts the count independent of transmission. The CDC is explicit that it cannot apportion the increase among these causes.
”

“One slice of the data resists that ambiguity. Only about a third of clinical cases come from blood; the rest are found in urine, wounds and the respiratory tract, where the fungus is often colonizing rather than invading. A bloodstream infection is unambiguous disease, and it forces the laboratory to name the species, because treatment depends on it. Yeast from urine or sputum is often reported without that precision, and only gradually have labs adopted the methods that distinguish Candida auris from commoner relatives, so those counts climb partly as testing improves. Blood is close to method-proof. Blood cases rose about 60 percent across the two years, from 991 to 1,586, while all clinical cases together more than doubled, so blood’s share fell from a third to a quarter. The faster growth sits in those same non-blood specimens, much of it colonization rather than serious infection. The dependable measure of how much invasive disease has grown is the 60 percent that blood shows, not the headline doubling.
One trend runs the other way. Although the totals keep climbing, the year-over-year increases are shrinking, from 96 percent between 2021 and 2022 to 54 and then 40 percent. ”

“What I will be watching is resistance: nearly every isolate already defeats fluconazole, and whether the still-rare strains that also defeat the echinocandins, or every antifungal at once, stay rare will decide how dangerous Candida auris becomes, a question this surveillance cannot answer because it records no susceptibility results.
Screening Moves to the Front Door
Where hospitals look for the fungus has changed over the three years. Screening means swabbing patients to find carriers and isolating them before the organism reaches roommates and equipment. That effort once concentrated in long-term acute care hospitals and ventilator units, where the most vulnerable patients cluster.”

“In 2022 long-term acute care hospitals accounted for 56 percent of screening detections and ordinary acute care hospitals for 25; by 2024 the proportions had inverted, to 36 and 51. The likeliest explanation is mundane: hospitals began screening at admission, catching patients colonized elsewhere, rather than colonization migrating between facilities.
The patients themselves did not change. Nearly nine in ten are 45 or older and 61 percent are men, the patients with the classic risk factors for colonization: long hospital stays, ventilators, central lines and heavy antibiotic use. The male predominance, consistent across the three years, remains unexplained.
The slowdown the CDC attributes to renewed infection control depends on the unglamorous practices its guidance prescribes: hand hygiene, patient isolation, and disinfection with the few products that kill the fungus. Those defenses gave way during the pandemic, and the fungus surged. Investigations of the outbreaks that followed pinned them on shortages of protective equipment, lapses in hand hygiene and overcrowded units. Whether the increments keep shrinking depends on how well the routines hold now.”

https://apple.news/AMwhr8dUnSw-Vi4sIF2MO\_g

“Among the findings:
25% of West Virginia hospitals that joined a hospital network closed their obstetrics unit within five years
West Virginia has gone from 35 hospital obstetrics units in 2006 to 16 as of May, 2026
Since 2020, obstetrics units in West Virginia have closed at a rate that is triple the national average
A lack of access to maternal health care was associated with preterm births between 2021 and 2023 and lower birthweights between 2017 and 2023
Roughly 50% of West Virginia counties are considered maternal health care deserts
On average, residents in these counties travel 44 minutes to the nearest labor and delivery unit, with the most impacted 20 percent traveling 76 minutes
“In a profit-driven health care system, profitability really does play a key role in the viability of a service and most OB units across the country are not profitable,” CBP Health Policy Analyst Rhonda Rogombé said. “It’s a very expensive unit to run.”
The report recommends increasing the maternal healthcare workforce through doulas and certified professional midwives. There are several midwives in West Virginia, Rogombé said, but not enough. ”

““They are trained to provide medical services all the way through a pregnancy and beyond, and work alongside hospitals,” she said. “They can travel to these rural communities to provide care in areas where there is none.”
Other recommendations include reforming payment models for obstetrics care and strengthening federal and state merger review processes, which the report says can help prevent the closures of West Virginia’s remaining labor and delivery units. Click here to access the full report.”

“Physicians are working harder for more pay with compensation driven by patient demand and a shortage of doctors while reimbursement rates are stagnant and expected to worsen, a new report shows.
The American Medical Group Association’s AMGA 2026 Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey shows total clinic compensation is up 4.3% this year. Total clinic compensation includes pay of primary care physicians, medical specialties, surgeons and advanced practice nurses and physician assistants.
“Overall total clinical compensation rose 4.3% in 2025, a sustained increase that reflects both growing patient demand and the intensifying competition for clinical talent,” AMGA said in its analysis. Data for the AMGA 2026 Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey comes from more than 450 medical groups and health systems and more than 190 medical specialties representing nearly 190,000 providers of medical care. ”

“For example, primary care doctor pay rose 3.7% on average with median compensation of family physicians up 3.7% to $342,411 compared to $330,216 in 2025. Meanwhile, compensation of internal medicine doctors was up 3.9% to $361,426 and pay of pediatricians was up 3.5% to $305,435.
But AMGA analysts say about half of compensation growth is being funded by “increased provider output, not by gains in reimbursement.” Work relative value units (wRVUs) increased 2.4% overall in 2025, and patient visit volume grew 2.0%, which AMGA analysts say are “signs of genuine demand expansion.””

“Meanwhile, there’s still a physician shortage. The Association of American Medical Colleges says the United States will face a physician shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036.
“Over the past several years, provider compensation has increased, but approximately half of the increases have been supported by ongoing growth in wRVU production,” said Fred Horton, AMGA Consulting president. “In a marketplace with stagnant reimbursement, this is necessary to afford the increases in total cash compensation, but it is not sustainable. At some point productivity will top out, and providers are already adjusting their (full-time equivalent employees) and seeking alternative work arrangements in response to increased workloads.”
The report comes amid a “difficult policy backdrop,” AMGA analysts said with a coming wave of federal spending cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program for poor Americans and the loss of enhanced subsidies for Americans to buy individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Trump signed into law last year is projected to reduce federal spending on Medicaid by about $1 trillion over a decade.
“The Medicaid piece going to be very problematic going forward,” Horton said. ”

E

“Greenwood Leflore Hospital will remain open while the University of Mississippi Medical Center takes over operations after a Hinds County chancery court judge ordered the Mississippi Division of Medicaid to continue making a $2.4 million payment.
The hospital had said earlier this month that it could be forced to close immediately after DOM threatened to withhold the funds, which come from the Mississippi Hospital Access Program—a program designed to help ailing rural hospitals.
GLH, which is located in Greenwood, Mississippi, filed for bankruptcy protection in April while in the midst of negotiations with the University of Mississippi Medical Center for the takeover. The Institutions for Higher Learning Board of Trustees earlier this month unanimously approved a proposal to receive GLH’s main campus as a donation, at no cost to UMMC.
That could take several months to complete, though, and DOM’s sudden effort to halt Medicaid payments threatened to derail the entire effort to save the hospital.”
““In the event GLH were to close, it would negatively impact a core foundation of any transaction with a larger system,” Gary Marchand, a GLH consultant and its former interim CEO, said in a statement to the Mississippi Free Press after DOM sought to halt the payments. “The result is the inability to bill DOM for services provided to Medicaid recipients in future months. Any new operator would have to be re-credentialed to provide services to Medicaid recipients and this process could take six months or more.”
Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Dewayne Thomas ordered the Mississippi Division of Medicaid to make Greenwood Leflore Hospital’s June MHAP payment by Tuesday, June 30—the same day the hospital system had warned it would be forced to close without the $2.4 million payment. The Greenwood Commonwealth first reported on the judge’s order.
GLH serves a population of roughly 25,000 people, about 75% of whom are Black. The nearest hospital is 30 miles north in Grenada, which is also a UMMC affiliate.”

“Seconds before the two earthquakes that would forever change her life hit Venezuela at about 6pm on 24 June, Jenny Mosquera heard an alarm beep on her smartphone. Like many, she didn’t have time to figure out it was a natural disaster alert before her building started shaking.
“Everything happened in a matter of seconds. The alarm went off three times, but I didn’t understand what it was. We just felt the shaking and fell [to the ground],” Mosquera said, standing near the rubble of her home in a coastal residential area of La Guaira, the worst-hit state north of Caracas.
When The New Humanitarian met her, nearly 48 hours had passed since two quakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude – the most powerful to hit Venezuela in more than a century – shook the country, leaving behind a trail of death and devastation.
By 29 June, official data already registered 1,719 people dead, more than 5,000 injured, and nearly 16,000 people displaced. But the number of casualties is expected to continue soaring, as tens of thousands remain listed as missing and the window to find survivors is closing fast.
Hardest hit areas include La Guaira; the country’s capital, Caracas; ”

““The situation is catastrophic. It’s something never seen before, devastating,” César Jiménez, projects and grants manager for US-based global health and aid group Project Hope, told The New Humanitarian. “No country is prepared for a catastrophe of this magnitude.”
Jiménez, who has been assessing needs in La Guaira with his team, said videos being posted on social media don’t reflect the scale of the disaster. He said the electricity grid still hadn’t been reestablished in many areas, complicating rescue efforts at night. He said hospitals were completely overwhelmed, with the smell of decomposing bodies beneath the debris becoming more pronounced with each passing day.
Mosquera, 44, was in her sixth-floor apartment with her husband Roberto and their 13-year-old daughter Andrea when the quakes struck. They were all in a bedroom, but the shaking was so intense it threw her family into the living room, while she remained stuck under the door frame.
“The last thing I heard my daughter say was, ’Mom, what is this?’”, she said. “Then I saw a slab of plaster falling from the wall onto them. They died in each other’s arms.”

“Mosquera managed to survive without serious injuries, crawling through the rubble towards an opening near her. Nearly 48 hours later, she was still at the site waiting for her family’s bodies to be recovered. She said she received food, water, and medical care for her wounds from volunteers, but that the arrival of the machinery and rescue tools had been slow.
“This has been a disaster,” said Mosquera. “It is the people who have been very humanitarian, because it is those [volunteer rescuers] arriving from other areas who have helped us.”
Once her husband and daughter had finally been recovered by surviving residents and volunteer rescue workers, she sheltered their bodies from the sun under an improvised tent she fashioned by tying a sheet to a motorcycle.
There was no forensic protocol; no one to take them to a morgue.
“I don’t even have the breath left to cry,” she said. “My heart is broken.”
Dozens of countries – from those nearby like the United States, Mexico, and Colombia to those far away such as France, Switzerland, and Qatar – have deployed rescue teams and sent aid. According to official figures, this international assistance amounts to 2,624 specialists in search, rescue, and “humanitarian support.
But given the magnitude of the devastation in a country that was already battered by a decade-long humanitarian and political crisis, many worry it isn’t enough.
The 24 June natural disaster dealt yet another blow to Venezuelans. Earlier this year, many hoped for a change after the US military attack and kidnapping of authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro in January. But despite President Donald Trump’s promises, the US intervention has failed to bring prosperity, Maduro’s closest allies remain in power, and there are no elections in sight.
Inflation continues to be one of the highest in the world, while the monthly minimum wage of $240 – composed mostly of state bonuses – is dwarfed by the $770 cost of a basic monthly food basket. According to the National Survey on Living Conditions (ENCOVI), only 29% of households had access to running water on a daily basis in 2025, while 39% of them had no power for several hours a day.
“We are living a serious crisis within a major crisis,” said Claudia González, institutional relations and external engagement manager at World Vision Latin America. “For us to be hit by two earthquakes is the icing on the cake that was “missing to create total chaos and a bleak outlook for the country.”
Community members as first responders
As soon as the quakes occurred, a vast array of Venezuelans started mobilising, organising volunteer aid efforts in La Guaira, Caracas, and other parts of the country’s interior.
Everyone from private businesspeople to the diaspora, from local officials in unaffected Venezuelan states to random citizens, began raising donations or participating directly in rescue tasks and body recoveries. They have set up fundraising efforts, relief collection centres, and shelters. They have supplied and delivered basic items such as food and water to those in need. They have created search pages for missing persons and even a platform to monitor supply and medicine requests across hospitals.
Motorbike, car, and truck owners have volunteered to transport goods and scout around parts of Caracas to identify people in need, including those who may not have lost their homes but have been left without electricity, gas, or stores to purchase food or medicine.”

“LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) — Aid groups warned Tuesday that Venezuela's fragile healthcare system is being pushed to its limits nearly a week after two powerful earthquakes , with damaged and understaffed hospitals overwhelmed by the injured and deteriorating conditions in the disaster zone causing infectious diseases to spread.
The scores of international and domestic teams across Venezuela remain focused on the search for survivors , with the government death toll surpassing 1,700 and new bodies still being hauled out from the rubble.
But a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding among the living. United Nations agencies expressed concern about the health effects of thousands of displaced people sleeping for days in the open or in crowded, unsanitary shelters.
Venezuelan officials say that more than 15,800 people have been affected by the earthquakes — a figure that reflects the official number of displaced people, U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Carlotta Wolf said on Tuesday. Suddenly homeless Venezuelans are sleeping in cars, parks and elsewhere without adequate emergency shelter available.”

“Wolf said that number would continue to rise. Many of those displaced in the hardest-hit state of La Guaira are suffering from widespread food shortages, she said.
At a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that displaced Venezuelans have become increasingly vulnerable to the outbreak of preventable diseases like measles, given the population's low vaccination rates, as well as waterborne illnesses like dengue, yellow fever and malaria now flaring the disaster's wake.
The Venezuelan healthcare system, strained by decades of underinvestment and years of economic crisis is “under extreme pressure now, with facilities operating beyond the capacity of the surge of the trauma cases,” Lindmeier said.”

“According to the government, last week's earthquakes damaged or otherwise compromised 38 hospitals nationwide. WHO said it so far has evaluated 21 of those facilities, three of which are no longer operating. Another six have sustained damage and the rest are now buckling under a surge of trauma cases.
Many specialist doctors are missing in the ruins, including officials in charge of maternity care in La Guaira, WHO said, adding to the strain.
“Findings reveal chaotic service delivery and patient flow, marked by overcrowding, growing surgical backlogs ... and a breakdown in biosafety measures,” Lindmeier said, adding that the mayhem has caused “the collapse of forensic and morgue services and inadequate casualty registration.””

“The government has offered daily casualty updates, reporting on Monday that the death toll stood at 1,719 people killed and 5,000 injured. But experts say that's likely a significant undercount, as many more people remain missing and hopes for finding survivors diminish with each passing day.
Authorities have not offered any official count of missing people, and the earthquake's damage to phone networks and other infrastructure has complicated even informal efforts to gauge the toll of those still buried under the rubble.
More than 50,000 people were reported missing on one non-governmental digital database, though it's unclear how many of them have been found.”

A recent report commissioned by a state-appointed overseer largely blames long wait times on low productivity among the network’s doctors, and argues wait times also contribute to unnecessarily high prices.

“The state’s largest healthcare provider is trying to get patients seen faster as it embarks on a wide range of reforms intended to shore up its finances and get the cost of care in Vermont under control.
Wait times are long at University of Vermont Health, as they have been for years. A recent report commissioned by a state-appointed overseer largely blames the problem on low productivity among the network’s doctors, and argues wait times also contribute to unnecessarily high prices.
In the wake of that report, UVM Health leaders have announced a raft of new mandates for its Medical Group, which includes over 150 outpatient clinics and more than 1,000 physicians.
Specialists must give up some time once set aside for administrative work and instead see more patients. Providers will have less control over scheduling, and health system officials are more strictly enforcing a policy that requires clinicians to request time off three months in advance.
Many clinicians are chafing at the reforms.
Teresa Fama, a rheumatologist at Central Vermont Medical Center, said she understands that “tough times call for tough measures.” But she blames administrative bloat for the system’s inefficiencies, and worries that demanding more from clinicians ”

“To meet the new benchmarks, Fama said she's going to have to cut her follow-up appointments to 20 minutes, down from 30. She said that’ll make it a lot harder for her to have the kinds of in-depth conversations many of her patients have come to expect from her.
“I've followed some of them for close to, you know, 20 years. I know their stories, I know their families, I have really good relationships with them,” she said.
Tim Schad, a family nurse practitioner speaking on behalf of AFT-Vermont, the hospital system’s nurses union, said the reforms may get patients seen faster. But visits will be more rushed, he said, and providers, who are already struggling to keep up with paperwork, may take longer to get back to patients.
“The sentiment I hear most is, you know, we're just being asked to do more with less,” he said.
But hospital officials say these changes are urgently needed — and, alongside layoffs that were announced earlier this month, only the beginning.
UVM Health includes three hospitals in Vermont and three in northern New York along with outpatient clinics, skilled nursing facilities and a home health hospice agency.”

“It faces mounting financial pressures from rising costs and stagnant reimbursements, which are expected to get worse with changes to Medicaid in 2027. The same report that underscored the hospital system’s wait times also recommended that UVM Health find $300 million in expense reductions over the next three years.
“Given that reality and the short timeframe, many aspects of the organization will need to transform,” Annie Mackin, a spokesperson for UVM Health, wrote in an email.
The consultants found that new patients had to wait, on average, over 100 days for an appointment at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, and three months to see a doctor at CVMC in Berlin.
Patients who don't get seen can't be billed, and those wait times contributed to significant financial shortfalls for the system. UVM Health’s Medical Group lost almost $280 million in the 2025 fiscal year.
Consultants hired for the state said that the hospital system has offset those losses in part by charging more for outpatient care and ancillary services. Clinical productivity at UVM Health, meanwhile, is below the 50% percentile for the nation.”

The network hopes productivity reforms will get wait times to the national median, Mackin said, and to cut the medical group’s losses by up to $55 million.